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Trained early by Marco Ruas, Rizzo has adopted Ruas' brutal leg kicks and has developed strong stand up fighting and used this to great effect in the cage. Rizzo is a talented and feared striker in mixed martial arts.

Rizzo is a former World Vale Tudo Championship (WVC) Heavyweight Champion and former contender for the UFC heavyweight belt. A stint in PRIDE FC did not go too well for the former UFC Heavyweight title contender, and Rizzo suffered quick losses at the hands of Sergei Kharitonov and Roman Zentsov.

Rizzo returned to his winning ways on March 9, 2007, when he beat UFC veteran Justin Eilers by unanimous decision at the début show of Art of War Undisputed Arena Fighting Championship, which was held in Dallas, Texas.

He defeated Jeff Monson on September 1, 2007. This fight took place on the first pay-per-view event promoted by the Art of War Undisputed Arena Fighting Championship organization. Rizzo was defeated at Affliction: Banned by Josh Barnett, via knockout in round 2.

He was defeated by Gilbert Yvel at Ultimate Chaos: Lashley vs. Sapp via knockout in round 1. In his rematch with Jeff Monson, Rizzo won a decision at Bitetti Combat. He revealed in the post-fight interview that he had an elbow problem 10 days before the fight and that was why he could not push for the knockout that "the Brazilian fans deserved".